A drone or UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) is an unmanned aircraft. A drone may be autonomous and/or remotely piloted.
The drones currently on the market vary widely in terms of performance, size, autonomy, operating costs and purchase price. Drones have both civil and military applications. Some drones are low-cost toys while others are professional models worth many thousands of euros. From a technological standpoint, n-copters such as quadcopters are the most widespread models on the market. Some drones are only a few centimeters in size (for example biomimetically inspired drones) while others have wingspans of several meters (e.g. combat drones). Certain drone ranges allow payloads to be transported. The majority of drones currently on the market include flight stabilization methods and devices. Although drone flight plans may sometimes be entirely predefined, they are generally at least partially remotely guided by a human operator.
The on-board instrumentation of drones has progressed substantially in recent years. For example, improved batteries now allow significantly increased flight autonomy, on-board processors are more powerful, providing faster feedback loops, and image acquisition sensors exhibit increased sensitivity, improving imaging and/or navigation. Furthermore entirely new capabilities have become envisageable, in particular by virtue of progress made in the field of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems), allowing improvements in gyroscopes, accelerometers and laser autofocus systems. Contemporary drones may also use new cameras providing depth information (depth-of-field cameras or time-of-flight cameras). In fact, drones have pervaded numerous fields of activity (surveillance, telecommunications, logistics, art, leisure, etc.).
However, the application of aerial drones to (domestic or industrial) cleaning still remains relatively underdeveloped.
For several years now there have been robotic vacuum cleaners limited to floor movements which replace conventional brooms and vacuum cleaners for the purpose of picking up dust, relieving the user of this chore. Some of these floor robots use random movements and/or map the rooms of the house (for example using cameras). The movement patterns of these machines are variable. Sometimes movement is entirely predefined, with local adaptations (e.g. reflex arcs) for appropriately adapting to unexpected occurrences and/or to obstacles (collision avoidance). However, user intervention is still frequently required: the latter generally has to facilitate access to certain surfaces or otherwise to put in place measures to prevent movement (e.g. to prevent access to certain types of carpets or to lamp stands, to avoid cables on the floor in the path of the robot, etc.). These interventions are generally manual. In the majority of cases, only horizontal surfaces are concerned.
Scientific publications and patent literature do not address, or address only cursorily, the technical problem consisting in cleaning surfaces and/or objects. In particular, the prior art does not specifically deal with the treatment of non-horizontal and/or non-planar surfaces, or else surfaces located at height, i.e. surfaces other than floors and similar wide horizontal surfaces. It is apparent that the technical problems to be solved for these surfaces which cannot be likened to the floor (bookshelves and objects of any form for example) are entirely specific. The technical solutions described in the context of (non-aerial) robots intended for washing the windows of buildings exhibit limitations, as do the technical solutions published for cleaning solar panels. Patent document CN203122289 exhibits limitations in particular in terms of payload and trajectory optimization.
There is a domestic and industrial need for treatment, in particular cleaning, methods and systems using a drone.